


Five Things Jeff Gave Annie and One Thing Annie Gave Jeff

by Raj_Sound



Series: Things They Gave Each Other [2]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s05e13 Basic Sandwich, Episode: s06e13 Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Long-Distance Relationship, Marriage, One Shot, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s06e13 Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29201397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raj_Sound/pseuds/Raj_Sound
Summary: Jeff was never really a flowers and chocolate kind of guy. Annie knew that going into it and managed her romantic expectations accordingly. She accepts him as he is rather than what she imagined he could be back when she was a teenager, still optimistic and arrogant enough to think she could fix him. She grew out of naïve notions about love, but she never grew out of loving him. She grew into it instead.
Relationships: Annie Edison/Jeff Winger
Series: Things They Gave Each Other [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2143974
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	Five Things Jeff Gave Annie and One Thing Annie Gave Jeff

**Backpack**

No one ever made a big deal about Annie’s birthday when she was growing up. Between Hanukkah, Christmas, and a family that didn’t consider being born an accomplishment worth celebrating, December 19th tended to pass by with only perfunctory attention. The group took her out for her twenty-first, but other than that they never made a point of celebrating birthdays. After the terrifying disaster that was Jeff turning forty, she assumed that they were done with the whole birthday thing altogether, so she was surprised when he presented her with a beautiful leather backpack, the same stylish, but practical bag she raved about to her bored and indifferent friends. It was well outside her budget and frankly outside of Jeff’s as well, but it’s the fact that he listened while he was pretending to text that touched her the most.

He made her promise not to tell the group where she got it, since teaching at Greendale barely pays the bills and he doesn’t want the others to feel slighted when he gets the rest of them Subway gift cards for their respective birthdays. But she knew, or suspected, or hoped at least that this was his little way of telling her how much she means to him. Their relationship remained intimate, yet stubbornly undefined back then, stuck somewhere between friendship and _platonic shoulder holding_. Still, she took it as a positive sign, at least until the world fell apart and he proposed to Britta again.

She shoved the backpack in her closet along with her feelings for him after Borchert’s lab. It remained there, forgotten until she started packing for D.C. Her heart warmed when she found it again. The bag came in handy when she returned to Greendale the following fall and would continue to do so once she started her Master’s. By then she no longer needed a birthday present to know she is loved. Now he tells her every day.

* * *

**Kiss**

_I think you should kiss me goodbye or you might regret it for the rest of your life._

It didn’t feel like a goodbye kiss. It felt familiar and warm, like being kissed by her best friend, someone she loved deeply and well for years. It left her feeling light and free, hopeful with possibility. Annie knew that Jeff loved her, but she never knew how much he loved her until he told her he let her go. That what she needed was more important to him than what he wanted. That he cared more about her happiness than his own. That _the heart wants what it wants._ But since she still wanted him too, she decided that their story wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.

It took some effort to convince him that he wasn’t holding her back, that she wouldn’t _let_ him (or anyone else for that matter) hold her back. That they could support one another. That they were the best version of themselves when they were together. That all he really needed to do was stop getting in his own way. In the end she convinced him that they could make it work. She could be very persuasive and it’s not like he could never refuse her anyway.

He kissed her again when he picked her up from the airport, and though ten weeks wasn’t as long a wait as five years, it still felt like way too long. Now he kisses her every morning before she goes to work, every evening when she comes home, and really whenever he gets a chance. He tells her he’s making up for lost time. She tells him it was worth the wait.

* * *

**Flowers**

Jeff was never really a flowers and chocolate kind of guy. Annie knew that going into it and managed her romantic expectations accordingly. She accepts him as he is rather than what she imagined he could be back when she was a teenager, still optimistic and arrogant enough to think she could fix him. She grew out of naïve notions about love, but she never grew out of loving him. She grew into it instead.

Thing is, he knew going into it that she was very much a flowers and chocolate kind of girl and he could never bear to disappoint her. So, despite the fact that she knew it was outside his comfort zone, she returned to her D.C. apartment one day to discover a bouquet of orchids, irises, roses, and a few other purple flowers she didn’t recognize waiting outside her door with a card that said _thinking of you._ She teased him about being a closet romantic during their Skype call later that night, but she couldn’t stop smiling for days.

Over the years he would surprise her with flowers from time to time. On her birthday, on their anniversary, and sometimes just because he was thinking of her. When they bought a house together they planted lavender, wild violets, and Russian sage in their flowerbed, all of which were resilient enough to survive the Colorado winter and all of which happened to be her favorite color, which Jeff pretended was a coincidence.

* * *

**Doreen**

Annie was a bundle of nervous energy the first time she met Jeff’s mother. Doubly so since he let slip that she was the first girl he brought home in _over twenty years, seriously Jeff?!_ and that he might have mentioned her on a few occasions and possibly implied that she was especially important to him years before they started dating. Despite or possibly because of the fact that Doreen Fitzgerald was (according to Jeff) already Vice President of the Annie Edison Fan Club, she still fretted over the prospect of failing to live up to maternal expectations. Old habits die hard.

It turned out he was right and that Doreen _loved_ her. She honestly didn’t know what to do with this much unqualified maternal affection. It was surreal seeing Jeff with his mother, being on the outside of an inside joke between them, witnessing glimpses of a history that predated her very existence. She didn’t put much thought into the fact that Jeff was older and Doreen didn’t hold the fact that Annie was younger against her. _You love my son._ That was the only thing that mattered.

From then on, Doreen was able to prod Jeff into bringing Annie around for dinner once every week or so. Occasionally the three of them would meet for brunch and the two ladies would tease him about his egg white omelette while they enjoyed their blueberry muffins. Sometimes it was just Annie and Dorie, window shopping at the antique store, baking things Jeff stubbornly refused to eat, chatting about school and work, and generally doing the things Annie imagined mothers did with their daughters. Eventually, this included helping Annie pick out her wedding dress.

It doesn't matter as much that her own mother is no longer part of her life. Annie has a mother that loves her.

* * *

**Coin**

Annie never made a big deal about being in recovery. Despite the fact that an alarming number of her friends (Pierce, rest his soul, Shirley, Jeff, and probably Britta) struggled with substance abuse issues at one point or another over the years, she was the only one that ever let addiction define her. She wasn’t ashamed of it or anything, but it’s not like she bragged about getting her GED either. It was just part of her backstory, as Abed would say.

It’s been a long time since anyone that mattered called her _Little Annie Adderall_. She hasn’t been to a meeting in years, but she still has days where she needed to remind herself to take it one day at a time. Like when she spent that first awful post-Greendale year pushing pens for Futurza, back when she was still committed to a career she never really wanted in the first place or when the wedding invitation she sent her mother as an olive branch was returned along with a restraining order.

_One day at a time._

She was confused when Jeff congratulated her on the tenth anniversary of her sobriety. She didn’t recall telling him the date and wouldn’t have expected him to remember. She was stunned when he placed the small bronze Narcotics Anonymous coin in her hand. She blinked back tears as her husband pressed his forehead against hers, told her she was the strongest, bravest woman he’d ever met and whispered _I’m proud of you_ like a prayer. 

She’s still here and that’s a big deal.

* * *

**Sarah**

They made a baby.

Annie grew a whole person inside her womb.

A tiny, delicate, beautiful little person.

She insisted pregnancy was a team effort, but as Jeff pointed out, his post-conception contribution consisted mostly of moral support and indulging her impulses to the best of his ability. Just like when they were students, Annie did most of the actual work during those nine long, strange, confusing, surreal, exhilarating, wonderful months, the last fifteen hours of which were a painful, sweaty, exhausting, and undignified endeavor. Some women describe childbirth as the most beautiful moment of their lives. Those women are insane.

But it was worth it.

For the first few years it was just the two of them. Jeff and Annie Winger against the world. But eventually they decided that despite difficult childhoods, absent and abusive parents, and the fears, doubts, and insecurities that came with those experiences, they were still capable of becoming a kickass parenting team. Together they were basically unstoppable. So now there are three of them. And while Jeff never found an adequate combination of words to express how grateful he was for Sarah, it didn’t matter to Annie. She already knew.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the Discord crowd for your suggstions!


End file.
